


Do You Copy

by midnighteverlark



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ficlet, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Season/Series 03, Temporary Character Death, Tumblr Prompt, this is bad don't read it lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 07:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18988198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnighteverlark/pseuds/midnighteverlark
Summary: The Gate is closed. And Will is dead.Tumblr prompt: "Hey could you maybepleaseifyouhavetime write a l i t t l e something where Will doesn’t survive the end of s2 and the thing is from Mike’s POV and it’s based on All I Want (Kodaline)"This is so short and bad it barely deserves to be posted lol but I've been putting off answering this prompt for weeks (sorryyy) so the least I can do is post it. I may delete it later and rewrite it.





	Do You Copy

The Gate is closed. And Will is dead.

That’s what they’re saying, at least.

When Joyce, Jonathan and Nancy returned from the cabin, they returned alone. Hours after the Gate closed. Their movements slow, their eyes red and puffy. Mike was the first to ask -  “Where’s Will?” and they wouldn’t answer. He had to say it again. “Where’s Will?” And then, when they just stood by the car and avoided his eyes, “Where is he? What happened?” 

Joyce, silently, started crying. 

In the end it was Nancy who had to step forward and put one shaky hand on Mike’s shoulder, taking a shallow breath to deliver the blow. They weren’t able to save him. The heaters didn’t work; Will screamed and writhed in the heat, skin burning red, hair plastered down with sweat - and it didn’t matter. The Mind Flayer wouldn’t let him go. The veins of dark matter pulsed under his skin until the very last, binding him to the Upside Down until El was forced to close the Gate - and that was it. 

They tried to revive him. Nancy says that over and over - “We tried. We tried.” CPR. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Nothing worked; his body went cold. Colder even than when the Shadow had him. And now Mike is sitting at the Byers’ kitchen table, drifting in a glazed-over bubble of unreality. This isn’t real. This is  _ not _ real. It’s not. He won’t believe it. Will has been there since Mike was five - nearly as long as he can remember. He can’t be gone - it’s just not possible. It doesn’t make sense. Will has always just  _ been _ there. Mike is still here, alive - it’s unfathomable that Will  _ isn’t. _

He just wants Will to appear in the doorway. He keeps looking, keeps expecting it. He rubs his fingers over his eyes,counts to five, and then looks again. Every time feeling a little jolt of anticipation in his belly, and every time feeling the cold, sinking feeling of emptiness when Will’s not there. The others mill around, halfheartedly nailing boards over the front window and sweeping up glass. Peeling up the spiderwebbing trail of papers from the carpet, the walls, the ceiling. Will’s map. Then Mike snaps at them to leave it, and they do. 

Will’s face keeps swimming somewhere in the layers of his vision. Tricking him. Making him think he’s really seeing those features that are somehow, impossibly, soft and sharp at the same time. they’re nearly as familiar to Mike as his own reflection. God, he should have said something. Anything. Something that mattered. He should have told Will just how much he means to him. That he’s one of two people on earth Mike would kill or die for. The last time they  _ really _ talked - the last time they said goodbye to each other - was in that hospital. That was before the Mind Flayer eclipsed the last glimmer of Will’s control. And Mike doesn’t want to - he  _ doesn’t want to - _ but he can’t stop seeing Will’s face. He was sickly pale, with dark curves under his eyes, his bangs fanned out over his forehead in strings. But he smiled at Mike. Mike remembers that. Will smiled at him, from that hospital bed - a small, tired smile. It was at something Mike said. A joke. Will wasn’t exactly in a laughing mood, but it  _ did _ coax that smile out of him. He’s always had a smile like the sun. And it made Mike smile, too.

Will always does that. He makes Mike smile, even in the worst of moods. There’s a side to Mike that only ever seems to emerge around his best friend. A little softer; a little more vulnerable. And all at once Mike stands, pacing across the kitchen and down the hall in a fit of restless energy. 

_ Damnit, Will, _ he thinks, wandering into Will’s bedroom and kicking at the carpet.  _ Why couldn’t you have just held on a little longer? If you had just waited... Just a few more minutes... _

Mike can’t help checking behind the bed; under Will’s desk; behind his door. He’s gotta be  _ somewhere _ . It’s just like last time. It has to be just like last time. He’s here somewhere. He’s out there,  _ somewhere _ \- he’s not dead. 

He sits heavily on Will’s bed and pulls the lamp onto the corner of the bedside table. Breathing deep. 

“Will?” 

He waits. Staring at the lampshade so intently that the patterns burn into the back of his eyes. Then he rips the lampshade off and throws it on the floor, staring at the bare bulb like it’s a magic crystal. Waiting for a flicker. A glimmer. The barest fizzle of response. 

“C’mon, Will,” he mutters. “C’mon. I know you’re there. You have to be there. Say something.” 

Mike waits. The bulb remains dark, inert. Cold. Maybe Will doesn’t know Mike is trying to contact him, maybe he can’t hear, maybe - 

He rolls across the bed and snatches up Will’s supercomm from where it fell halfway under the bedframe. Sitting up, he yanks the antenna to full length and jams his thumb firmly against the button. 

“Will, come in. It’s Mike. Do you copy?” 

Silence. The faintest buzz of static - and nothing more. Mike tries to call again, but his throat is closing, heat swelling behind his nose, his eyes, and when he opens his mouth again his voice dries up to a strained wobble. 

“Will, I -”  _ I need you to answer. Please, please answer. Please be there. _

Unable to speak, Mike holds down the  _ talk _ button again, and begins to tap one fingernail against the hard plastic of the speaker. Letter after letter. Patiently. Mike can be patient. He knows all about waiting. 

-.-. .-. .- --.. -.-- / - --- --. . - .... . .-.

_ Tap, tap, tap. _

When he’s done, he sits in silence. Still waiting, watching the light, praying, pleading with the universe to please, just give him this one little miracle. Just this one. He’ll never ask for anything ever again - no wishes, no birthday presents, no vacations or good grades or mercifully brief phone conversation with relatives - just this. He just wants his best friend back. Just that, and he’ll be happy. 

It hits him all at once, that gloss of disbelief melting away and leaving a horrible, sick jolt in its place: Will isn’t going to answer. He’s gone. Forever. Mike will never, ever turn and find Will at his side, where he’s been for nearly a decade. He’ll never hear him laugh, whispering some inside joke just to make Mike snort when he’s supposed to be serious. He’ll never sit beside Mike in class, or draw a scene from a campaign, or meet Mike’s eyes from across the room. He’ll never hold Mike’s hand again. Like they used to when they were little. Like they did just a couple days ago - has it been that long? - when Will was telling Mike about the Shadow. 

_ What if he spies back? _

_ We won’t let him. _

That was Mike’s promise. And he broke that promise. He wasn’t good enough; he didn’t do enough. He let that thing spy back, and he let it kill his best friend. He could have stopped it. Somehow. But he didn’t, and Will is dead.

Mike breaks. Pushing his face into his hands and dry-sobbing. He thinks he hears his name, somewhere off in the distance - maybe his sister looking for him, or Joyce. But no - it’s a boy’s voice, it’s -

Someone is shaking him. Shaking his shoulder. And Mike can still hear someone saying his name, saying - 

“Mike.  _ Mike. _ Hey. Mikey. Wake up.”

It’s dark. Mike blinks rapidly, his mind in freefall for a moment as he tries to orient himself, caught between two overlapping realities. Then the dream dissipates and he’s left in the vague, familiar shadows of the Byers’ living room, lying in his sleeping bag on the ground. And Will is -

Will is there. Just beside him. Alive.

He must still be mostly asleep, his mind not yet free of the nightmare, because Mike’s gut reaction is to rear up and crush Will into a hug. No - not exactly a hug. It’s something far more fierce and instinctual than that. The primal stem of his brain registers the concepts  _ Will _ and  _ alive _ , and its reaction is aggressive affection.

_ Thank god, _ Mike thinks, as he struggles his way awake.  _ Holy shit. Thank god. _

Will doesn’t say much; he simply allows it, quietly, letting Mike wind his arms around Will’s ribs like a boa constrictor. He waits through Mike’s deep, heaving breaths, tucking his chin against Mike’s shoulder. And then, still sitting half-in-half-out of his sleeping bag, he whispers, “Nightmare?” 

Mike nods against Will’s hair. They’re silent for another few minutes. Then, like an afterthought, Will half-whispers, “You said my name.”

Mike doesn’t respond, somehow embarrassed, but Will doesn’t seem to be waiting for a response. He shifts a little, settling into a more comfortable position, winding his arms around Mike in turn. He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to pull away, and for that, Mike is grateful. He holds Will tight enough to feel his warmth, his heartbeat. Will is alive. Wonderfully, miraculously alive. Mike’s best friend in the whole universe. Mike could kiss him. He - 

Mike freezes. Confused and still half-asleep, and trying to sort through his thoughts. Because for one strange moment, he wanted to. The impulse washed over him so strongly that he even turned his head, his body following the thought before his mind had caught up. He wanted to kiss Will. The same way he used to want to kiss El, sometimes, when he would call her on his supercomm and wished with all his heart and soul that she would appear in front of him. He used to stare off into space and try to remember what her lips felt like, during that one clumsy, impulsive moment - were they soft? Chapped? Did she smell like the woods, or like the salt they had been lugging back and forth all day to make the sensory deprivation pool? Did she gasp a little, like she hadn’t been expecting their mouths to bump? He can’t quite remember anymore. He’s been over the memory so many times he can’t tell what’s true memory and what’s wishful thinking. 

And now, as Will patiently lets Mike cling to him, it flashes through his mind for a split second. Would Will’s lips be soft or chapped? Would he taste like the toothpaste they brushed their teeth with mere hours ago? Would he take a sharp little inhale of breath in surprise? 

And then the moment passes and Mike slips free of the hug, and Will’s arms are a second late to drop. As if he was still reaching, unwilling to let Mike move back even a foot.

They talk for maybe an hour before falling back asleep. And that whole time, Mike can’t get that odd impulse out of his mind.

He chalks it up to sleep deprivation.


End file.
